How to Convert Windows Server 2012 Core to Full GUI OR Full GUI to Core-using Powershell

Windows
Server 2012 introduced with many new features and one of that in Core OS. Core OS boasts
many enhancements which include reducing the installation footprint, attack
surface and management overhead. One of the good option is Features on
Demand it allows the administrator to remove roles which are not needed to help
reduce the disk size required for the installation. By default, all
features are stored in the %windir%\winsxs directory, but administrators can
use the uninstall-windowsfeature <featurename> –remove command to delete
the files associated with that feature from the winsxs directory.

Windows
2012 Core OS come with windows feature called Server-Gui-Shell feature, which
can be install and uninstall as required and this feature only provide the
flexibility to jump from Windows Core to Windows Full GUI and Vice Versa.

Execute the command “uninstall-windowsfeature server-gui-mgmt-infra,server-gui-shell
–restart” as showed in below snap, it will start removing Gui shell from
windows feature.

Once feature uninstall complete server will reboot and you will able to login in to Windows server Core OS.

How to convert from Core to Full Gui

If you have removed the Server-Gui-Shell feature from Windows Server 2012 or you install Server Core edition and want to convert to full GUI, you must perform few extra steps tasks that prior to execute the actual PowerShell command to convert Core to Full Gui.